Here are the ten things we learned from week 30 of the 2015 MLS season.

1. Parity is paying off

Whether you like it or not, it’s hard not to marvel at MLS’ parity. In both the Western and Eastern Conferences, just six points separate teams one through six. Six teams are within three points of each other in the Supporters’ Shield race as well. Factor in San Jose in the West, and seven teams are within seven points.

With the exception of Chicago and Colorado, and maybe Philadelphia, every team in the league has something going for it this year. No team in the league has won more than half its games, and only three teams in the league have less than ten losses. LA, the Red Bulls, and Sporting Kansas City all have nine.

Seattle has lost only one more game than its won, and is just four points out of first place. Only four teams in the league have a goal differential – plus or minus – in the double digits.

All this parity, sameness, if you will, is going to result in one hell of an October where every single result will dramatically impact the table. Anything can happen.

2. Is the East on the rise?

It’s been a very good few weeks for the middle of the Eastern Conference. Montreal is on an absolute tear courtesy of a Didier Drogba in god mode – he has an astounding seven goals in six games – and a suddenly stingy defense, while Canadian rival Toronto FC has been winning too, albeit much less impressively.

Further down the table, Orlando City has turned its fortunes around out of nowhere – with a resounding 5-2 on Friday night in Harrison over New York serving as the shock result of the weekend – while fellow expansion side NYCFC weren’t far behind with their controversial 2-1 win at Vancouver on Saturday night.

Jason Kreis’ team has now won three on the bounce, and travels to a reeling DC United side next week to try to make it four straight. At the top of the table, the Red Bulls, New England, and Columbus still have faith in their respective playoff hopes.

Meanwhile, it’s hard to figure out what’s going on in the West. No one, including LA, seems to be itself. Sporting, Seattle, Dallas, Vancouver, and Portland have all looked terrible at various points in September.

It appears, very late in the game, like the conferences may have evened themselves out just a touch. Considering that the East has absorbed the last three expansion teams and lost two of its banner franchises to the West this offseason, that’s no small feat.

3. Seattle still isn’t well

The door was kept ajar for the Seattle Sounders heading into their match against Sporting Kansas City’s B team on Sunday afternoon to reclaim pole position in the Supporters’ Shield race, but the Sounders turned in a limp performance and only managed a 1-1 draw.

Simply put, this Seattle team hasn’t had the verve of last year and this spring since that US Open Cup debacle against the Timbers in June.

While the wins over Vancouver in both MLS and the Champions League last week were impressive, they had plenty to do with the Whitecaps’ own struggles. Seattle isn’t fixed.

While the decision to go back to the savvy, if aged Gonzalo Pineda beside Osvaldo Alonso in midfield was a good one, it’s still hard to integrate two new players in the starting lineup midseason like the Sounders are trying to do.

Neither Andreas Ivanschitz or Nelson Valdez were particularly sharp in Kansas, and when you add in the fact that Clint Dempsey has been nowhere near himself since the Gold Cup, Sigi Schmid has a big job in front of him. This team shouldn’t scare anyone right now.

4. Refereeing

It was one of those weeks. There were blown calls everywhere across the league on Saturday night, with Ricardo Salazar’s penalty madness at BC Place serving as the headliner for another embarrassing weekend for PRO.

Salazar gave two of the worst penalties of the season in the last five minutes of the Vancouver–NYCFC match, the first to the Whitecaps and the second as a makeup call – one has to hope – on a Frank Lampard dive for New York.

Silviu Petrescu had an abysmal performance in the Columbus-Portland match at MAPFRE Stadium, failing to give an early penalty for a foul against Darlington Nagbe that left Timbers owner Merritt Paulson tweeting, “Speechless.”

Quincy Amerikwa was offside in the buildup to San Jose’s late winner on Sunday at Avaya Stadium against Real Salt Lake, a huge linesman mistake in the Western Conference playoff race as well.

Unsurprisingly, there were no major refereeing incidents in the three games involving Alan Kelly, Ismail Elfath, and Jair Marrufo this weekend. MLS has good referees, and bad referees. The bad ones continue to err frequently.

5. US Open Cup Final

The US Open Cup Final will be played on Wednesday in front of a national television audience for the first time, as ESPN2 will air the match between Sporting Kansas City and the Philadelphia Union from PPL Park.

For the Union, in the same boat as last season, the Open Cup will serve as a chance to salvage a lost season. Philadelphia lost the final at home in extra time last year to Seattle.

The holders went out amid those fireworks at Starfire this year, and Sporting Kansas City – the team that ended the Sounders’ three-year reign in this competition in 2012 with a shootout win at Sporting Park – is back in the final looking to win their first silverware since MLS Cup 2013.

Sporting will be favorites, and Peter Vermes rested almost his entire team for the match, but Philly will be tough to beat at home. They’ve staked everything on redemption in this one game.

Kickoff is set for 7:00 PM on the east coast. It should be a special occasion.

6. DC United falling apart

Only a fool would bet on MLS, but with that said, betting against DC United seems like the safest thing going in the league right now.

United is in free fall, without a league win in a month and a half and five losses in six. That’s no surprise, either. DC was able to scrape by while the Eastern Conference struggled and teams around the league were generally trying to figure themselves out in the spring and early summer, but now that everyone is mostly at the races, DC is rapidly losing ground.

Quite simply, this team doesn’t have the horses to compete. Ben Olsen is counting on Fabian Espindola to be the focal point of a playoff attack, Alvaro Saborio to roll back the clock and start scoring again, and several decade-plus MLS veterans to hold up after a long season as the weather gets cold.

In the Western Conference, DC wouldn’t be a playoff team. As it is in the East, they’re going to fall all the way from first to fifth or sixth and a Wild Card – in which they’ll most likely get demolished.

Either Olsen and the DC brass thought this group was good enough to win, or they were unwilling to spend and make it good enough. Either way, this is going to be a long offseason at RFK. There’s no stopping the rot right now.

7. Trouble in Vancouver

The Whitecaps are in a rut right now, having lost three games in a row by a combined score of 8-1. They were knocked out of the CONCACAF Champions League midweek, and have lost two straight league games at home.

The loss to NYCFC in front of a raucous sellout crowd especially stings, and Carl Robinson accused his team of playing scared after the match.

Vancouver is certainly extremely young, and that’s very rarely a recipe for success in the fall in MLS. If the Whitecaps are to be a threat in the playoffs, they need to get their best XI healthy and back on the field, and have momentum headed into the postseason.

That makes the looming double-header with FC Dallas – possibly for a top two seed in the West – huge. First, though, is San Jose next Saturday.

8. The Timbers bounce back

The most impressive win of the weekend came in Columbus, where the Timbers spoiled the Crew’s 20th anniversary celebration with a gutty 2-1 win in an intense, fast-paced, highly entertaining match between two of the league’s more interesting sides.

Portland decided to go toe to toe with Columbus, high-pressing and playing off of the hugely underrated Fanendo Adi to great success. It was a massive win for the Timbers, not just in the standings, but also in the alleviate mounting frustration coming off of an infuriating home drubbing at the hands of the New York Red Bulls a week ago.

The Timbers have rarely lacked for intensity and grit over their five seasons in MLS, but both intensity and grit have been found severely wanting at times this season. Not on Saturday. The difference was instantly noticeable.

This is, without a doubt, Portland’s best ever MLS side on paper. But with the exception of a small stretch in June, these Timbers haven’t found their swing all season. Injuries have hurt this team, but a lack of real identity has been damaging too.

Maybe now, though, the Timbers are figuring out who they are. They have a golden opportunity to double down on this Columbus result – the club’s best win of the season – next weekend at home against Kansas City and really push for a home Wild Card game.

9. Miguel Herrera to Chicago?

Please, please, please god let this happen. Please.

Love,
Abe

10. Matias Perez Garcia’s moment

The Earthquakes DP – underwhelming for months – got a huge break on Sunday afternoon, scoring a late game-winner for the Earthquakes on a shot that took a major deflection to beat the otherwise otherworldly Nick Rimando.

In the jubilation, Perez Garcia raced to the corner flag and whipped off his shirt – forgetting, apparently, that he was on a yellow. After slipping his shirt back on after the celebration, he was promptly shown a second yellow and dismissed.

Now, I think, we’ve seen it all.